relatoralongefandomcom-20200214-history
Johtaja
Samantaka Baral, better known by his chosen name 'Johtaja '(pronounced joe-TIE- uh) is the religious and political leader of the Sunnist faith and the Empire of the Sun, respectively. He currently resides in Dar es'Salaam, Somalia. Early Life Johtaja was born as Samantaka Baral in the Indian Republic in 2109 in the Punjabi region of India. His parents were middle class fishermen who owned a small fleet of ships. Johtaja spent his early years near docks, learning how to sail and maintain powered ships. His parents, Ranesh and Aishwarya, were both devout Hindus. Ranesh tended towards Vaishaivanism through the worship of Krishna and Aishwarya practiced deity yoga and integrated some aspects of Mahayana Buddhism into her practice. In this environment, Johtaja was raised, educated, and home schooled until the age of thirteen. Being raised in the Punjabi, he was surrounded by Sikhism. In his young years, he expressed a strong interest in religion and often spent long hours in the temples of his hometown, meditating. As a teen, he served the poor and widowed daily by cooking them fresh meals and serving them out of the town's temple. Contemporaries say he was a quiet, studious child when left alone but very outspoken about certain issues, such as religious freedom and cultivation of non-monoculture crops. Formative Period At thirteen, he was sent by his parents to study abroad. He spent his first two years in Palestine in the Islamic Caliphate, where he fell in love with the study of religion and immersed himself in the Abrahamic faiths. He visited Jerusalem and spent three months in the city itself; the rest of the period was spent in Tel Aviv at a local university. After leaving Jerusalem at fifteen, he traveled to Mecca and settled down for a year. He would later relate that most of his money received from his parents during this time was used to help poor Muslims complete their pilgrimage to Mecca. At sixteen, he went to Tibet to live with monks of the Theravadan tradition of Buddhism, but Johtaja quickly found it not to his liking after only two months. He left instead to Japan in the USSR and studied Nichiren and Zen Buddhism for two years. At eighteen, he returned to Punjab, India and announced that he chose to dedicate his life to service towards his fellow man. His parents fully supported his decision. To this effect, he took a job at a local university as a teacher of spirituality and religion. He grew vocal in his position on the issues of interreligious unity and was frequently found at Hindu temples, Sikh dirwhallas, and Muslim mosques alike. Increasingly concerned with social issues, Johtaja founded an organisation called Radiance, designed to distribute the religiously-mandated tithing of adherents to those in need. Radiance grew very quickly and within six months existed as a collaborative organisation of Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, and a Christian. In 2140, the Radiance organisation founded a self-sustainable collaborative school of theology that uses proceeds from permaculture farming on it's surrounding lands to sustain itself. Wandering At the age of 34 (in 2144), Johtaja entrusted Radiance and the university to the members running it and left the Punjab to wander the globe and espouse his philosophies. He was convinced that he could make God availible to the common person. Liberator